Robert Mikkelson, president of Winged Vision Incorporated, does aerial footage from the MetLife Blimp for the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits. He is pictured here at the Sheboygan County Memorial Airport on Aug. 13.(Photo11: Kyle Bursaw/Press-Gazette Media/@kbursaw)Buy Photo

SHEBOYGAN – Like most spectators at Whistling Straits this weekend, Robert Mikkelson will be keeping an eye on the action — but at 1,500 feet, he’ll have a better view than most.

The professional cameraman is the eye in the sky from the MetLife blimp for live coverage of the PGA Championship on CBS and TNT Sports.

“There is no one like him,” Steve Milton, lead director for live golf coverage at CBS, said of Mikkelson. “I’ve been doing this 25 years and there is no one that can do what he does. No one can follow a golf ball like he does. He’s got an uncanny mind that can recognize one of 18 holes in an instant.”

From the gondola below the MetLife blimp, Mikkelson is able to capture the game of golf in a completely different way from cameras on the ground. The vantage point allows for video of golfers in deep rough, and provides context for what obstacles await golfers further down the fairway.

“Golf is like a chess board on how the architect has laid out the holes, and you can only see that from the air,” Mikkelson said.

“The ground cameras can show you what the golfer is looking at. I can show you what the golfer has to think about,” he continued. “If the golfer is looking at a shot out the fairway, you can see what he’s looking at, but you can’t necessarily see that there are three green-side bunkers or a water hazard. You can’t see that from the ground, but he’s thinking about that.”

Blimp footage is also used to follow the ball in the air off the tee. According to Milton, Mikkelson is the “best in the business” at the task.

Mikkelson’s skills in ball tracking have even attracted the attention of a defense contractor working on an adaptive, predictive tracking system. They assumed Mikkelson utilized some form of digital tracking system, but were surprised to learn it’s pure skill.

“The reason I can do it is because I don’t have a life,” Mikkelson chuckled. “I have a laptop and it is kind of like a video game. For me, it is all about timing. If I wait for the ball to be hit, it’s too late.”

Footage from the air utilizes stabilized cameras mounted to the front of the blimp. The MetLife blimp at Whistling Straits is smaller than some other blimps, such as the Goodyear blimp, which allows it to be more nimble, according to Mikkelson.

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Robert Mikkelson, president of Winged Vision Incorporated, does aerial footage from the MetLife Blimp for the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits.(Photo11: Kyle Bursaw/Press-Gazette Media/@kbursaw)

“It’s going to be a beautiful scene from up there,” Milton said. “There are courses where we go in the middle of the country where there are just trees and grass and that’s the end of it. The dramatic shorelines, and the way this course stretches 2 miles long from each end, it’s going to be sensational. If the weather is nice, the water blue … it will be spectacular.”

Mikkelson is accompanied in the gondola by a pilot, who controls the blimp using foot petals and two large wheels on either side of the seat. The process is more strenuous than flying a plane, Mikkelson noted, and if wind gusts above 24 miles per hour, they generally choose not to fly.

The blimp was grounded Aug. 14 as wind gusted at 25 miles per hour along the shoreline at Whistling Straits.

Drone footage provides alternate eye in the sky

With the blimp grounded, a drone with an attached camera was used Thursday to provide live aerial footage of the championship — a first for TNT Sports. Turner Broadcasting has used live drone footage in the past for live news footage on CNN, but never for a live sporting event.

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TNT executive Tom Sahara says the network is breaking ground by introducing drones to its PGA coverage at Whistling Straits.

Due to Federal Aviation Administration regulations, the drone is restricted in its use and cannot be flown within 500 feet of spectators. Instead of flying over the course, drone operators hover the octocopter over the lake and shoot live footage of hole 16 and 17, and tee shots of hole 18.

“When you get a little higher up, you can see beyond the green and see more perspective,” Tom Sahara, vice president of operations and technology for TNT Sports, said. “The elevation, the ovulation of the fairways and how it is set up — you can see that in the footage.”

The drone has limited battery and flies for approximately 7 to 10 minutes before returning to the ground to swap batteries. The attached camera also has limited zoom capabilities, but provides a nice topographical reference of the course.

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An octocopter drone prepares for takeoff during the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits. Turner Sports and CBS utilize live video footage from the drone during television broadcasts.(Photo11: Phillip Bock/Gannett Wisconsin Media)

Despite another camera in the air, Mikkelson said he’s not worried about the drone footage taking away from the blimp’s versatility.

“It is very similar when I showed up. The same questions were asked. People said, ‘You’ll take shots away from the ground cameras,’ but I have yet to see a camera eliminated. Any time you add more cameras all the other cameras have a little less airtime, but it complements what we can do.”

The drone is flown by a pilot who must have eye contact with the device any time it is in the air. A second technician operates the camera attached to the drone.

The two aerial cameras will supplement the more than 60 cameras on the ground throughout Whistling Straits. The ground cameras are linked to on-site television production trailers via more than 65 miles of fiber optic cables, providing live coverage anywhere on the course.

“This course is especially challenging just by the layout of it,” Sahara said. “It is very long and spread out. We have camera from one end all the way of the other. Because of the distance, we use fiber optics to bring all the signals back to the television compound.”

There are multiple separate productions utilizing the live video feeds from the cameras dotted throughout the course. TNT and CBS share the camera feeds, and a separate production trailer utilizes the footage for PGA.com.

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A drone hovers over Whistling Straits, capturing live footage of the PGA Championship on Aug. 12. It is the first time Turner Sports has utilized a drone for live sports coverage.(Photo11: Phillip Bock/Gannett Wisconsin Media)

“In the past few years, we’ve been carrying golf from the first group till the last group comes in on PGA.com,” Sahara said. “We have our own production truck for that, but we use a lot of the same camera resources with the other broadcasters.”

Employees of the different productions work closely together — even Mikkelson, who technically is a independent contractor, is considered part of the crew.

“It’s a real family. It’s hard to describe to outsiders, but the teamwork involved is greater than the teamwork we have on football games,” Mikkelson said. “I consider these people not only colleagues, but also good friends.